Beyond the Rose Colored Glasses – Urban Yeti (GBA)

Back in college, I had a vision. It came to me in a dream during one of the calm points in my educational career. The details of the dream itself are fuzzy (no shit) but I remember the feeling of hectic movement. That’s what made the next part so clear. You see, whatever was going on in my dream faded away like the dimming of a dying star, but it was replaced by something just as magical.

I was in a clearing, surrounded by an indescribable openness boarded by white light. From the woods beyond, the great ape himself was revealed: Bigfoot. He approached me, his ruffled brown coat reflecting the light causing his fur to shimmer like the gentle pulse of the ocean. A giant arm stretched out, his enormous, human like hand gently gripped most of my upper arm. His eyes, moist with the emotional flood of humanity, looked into my soul. And to this day, I’ll never forget what he told me.

“You know, at the place you work, ‘Urban Yeti’ is on sale for $9.99.”

I remember immediately waking up and saying out loud, “Well, that was stupid” and went right back to sleep. However, I did make a mental note to check out the GBA section of the Electronics Boutique I worked at the next day.

Sure enough, it was there. Whether it was subconscious because I happened to glance at it on the shelf or due to my destiny being foretold in a dream by a cryptid, I bought it.

It was indeed “$9.99”.

HERE’S WHAT I REMEMBER:

What sticks out the most were the graphics. My mind is actually having a hard time deciding whether they were good or not. Part of me remembers the sprites looking like a dog shit a bunch of pixels onto the screen. Another part remembers being impressed with how clear everything was given the ambition of the graphics. Maybe it was both. Maybe years of booze, pills, and head injuries have finally taken it’s toll. After all, I am trying to remember a game that sounds like a fever dream mixed with Absinth.

Just your average Saturday afternoon in Jersey.

Other than the possibly good/bad graphics, I mostly remember it being a bunch of mini games held together by a ridiculous plot. I believe that was a selling point for me, since I’m relatively sure that I heard about this game via a gaming magazine and they scored it a 6/10 because of the humor and sheer weirdness of it. That was good enough for college aged me who was adult enough to have no time to play a full game, yet enough of a child that seeing a picture of a dick would keep me laughing for hours

Humor!!!

Obviously this game didn’t have dick…I think…I hope…rather I got to play some kind of overhead…something. I don’t remember what I had to do, but I know that I was a Yeti looking for his girlfriend. Then she gets abducted by a UFO. Then I’m tubing down a river. Then something else happens. Then I played hockey…

It’s a weird game is what I’m saying.

HOW DOES IT HOLD UP?

This game sucks.

Why the fuck did I play it as much as I did? I mean sure, it was weird and quirky, but everything I remember liking about it is wrong. Was I more forgiving? Was I a better person? Was I a…oh god no. I was probably one of those cringey “random for the sake of random” guys, wasn’t I?

No…you can’t be alive. You’re dead! I killed you!

From the moment I turned the damn thing on, I knew I was in for some shit. The cacophony of noise that went off that was supposed to be music sounded like how I’d imagine a pacemaker would sound if it was too close to a microwave. There’s also some digitized vocal that screams at you during the title sequence and I can only imagine that it’s the dying voice of said pacemaker man realizing that he’s never going to eat the 7/11 burrito he just bought.

Only the BEST clip art for this game.

I remember there being a GTA like city to explore that’s filled with random nonsense, but what once made past me giggle back in my dorm room, infuriated me to no end. You walk around a very small map avoiding cars, cats, dogs, police who immediately shoot at you with the slowest moving bullets outside of a Looney Tunes cartoon, people, people who punch you, and birds taking a shit on you. Did you want to walk around the level like a normal video game where getting from point A to point B means walking in a straight line? Well fuck you because you’ll end up going to points C, D, E, and F first due to getting hit by a car every five seconds. Want to pretend to act like a human and wait on the sidewalk for the cars to go by? Fuck you! That bird shit hurts you just like a fucking car and it happens ALL THE TIME!

This is fun. I’m having fun.

Here’s the rub people. I only got to the first minigame which was an unplayable ripoff of ‘Tapper’. When you hear me out, you’ll understand why.

You have a bunch of tables with people moving towards you and it’s your job to select the correct food displayed above their head and slide it over to them. If you don’t give them what they want, they get angry and punch you in the face, which knocks you down for a few seconds. See the problem here? The people pile up so fast that if you get knocked down once, your might as well start over. Or you could do literally anything else. I hear that nailing your dick to a table or supergluing your labia shut is all the rage.

If only there was an option for walking out the door and throwing this shit into a dumpster.

How do you stop the people from punching you in the face? Perfectly navigate your yeti towards the food that someone wants and punch it. Don’t stand in front of it however, because your punch goes around the hitbox if you make such a logical assumption. Same goes for delivering the food. Slide it on the table and your patrons will ignore it. Eventually you’ll be in a situation where people want a certain food and it won’t be available because food spawns randomly rather than in a set location. When this happens, remember that suicide hotlines are available and you aren’t alone.I watched some videos of the remainder of the game, and some of the minigames do look like fun, but I’m not about to slog through the tedious GTA style missions and terrible controls for a few minutes of entertainment. That’s like slogging through the jungles of Vietnam for the world’s best hand job. Sure it’s great, but is is worth the malaria? I guess what I’m saying is that ‘Urban Yeti’ is my own personal Vietnam…

Hey, how's it going? Good? Great. Look, shut up for a second, I want to talk about something important...me.
As a writer (read: pressing buttons that make swear words enter your brain via your eyes) I get the most pleasure out of life putting my ideas out there for others to enjoy (or hate, it's all pretty much the same on the internet). I've written screenplays, movie and video game reviews, and articles delving into science and skepticism, as well as articles devoted to more mundane bullshit. To date, not a single one has paid for a single goddamn bill. I keep going because it's fun.